Gardening adventures: Week 17

Let’s talk about the bright side of my garden first, or as you can see from the photo above, the bright middle of my garden. The tomato plants that are doing well have lots of tomatoes on them. I’m just waiting for them to turn red. That always seems to take a really long time. I’ve got eggplants and peppers growing. And the herbs, except for the parsley, are doing very well – they are mostly along the left fence.

The watermelon plants (see picture at right) that we planted in a separate plot are winding their way around and have some flowers on the ends. I’m hopeful.

Other than that, though, I am distraught. It’s the rabbits. I hate them. Those cute little furry creatures that I agonized over in the early spring when their nest was where my tomatoes should go are now my sworn enemy. They started it. I protected them when they were babies and they’ve turned on me.

They’ve eaten all my broccoli, green beans (see picture at left) and parsley. The broccoli and the green beans and I can accept with grace. The parsley, though, is hard to accept. I’ve taken to calling the rabbits names under my breath that I hope my children never hear.

I have a fence; they burrow under it. I use pepper spray on the plants; they don’t care. I have a cat; she’s useless. She sits under a bush near the garden and watches the rabbits frolic in the backyard and meows meekly. She tried to go after one of the rabbits once, but she smacked into the garden fence and ricocheted back. She hasn’t tried again.

I know many might be horrified at the fact that I’d unleash my cat on the rabbits, but I don’t want her to actually kill them (well, most of the time I don’t). I just want her to show them who’s the boss. Unfortunately, the rabbits are in charge.

I know there are natural repellents out there that I could buy. But I’m tired of spending money protecting my garden. If I have to spend so much money just to get a few vegetables from my backyard, wouldn’t it be better if I spent that money at the farmers market and bought vegetables?

I feel like giving up. Half of my tomato plants are stunted, and I’m not really sure why. Half of the other vegetables are rabbit food. But I’m not going to give up. I’m going to try one last time for parsley. I’m going to get a window boxes and tie them to the top of the fence behind the garden and plant parsley and maybe green beans in there. Unless I’ve got flying rabbits, which wouldn’t surprise me at this point, they won’t be able to get to it, right?

I’ll let you know how my top of fence/window box experiment turns out.

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